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Smokey Joe

I picked up a set of four forgecraft knives off of ebay last week just for giggles and mainly because I wanted to have a few extra knives laying around when I am boning out deer. Anywho, the knives arive and the previous owner must have been a chain smoker because these knives absolutely reek. They also have quite a bit of crap on the scales and in between. Overall, the handles are in pretty good shape.

Have any of you run into this before and is it worthwhile for me to attempt to clean up the scales or would they have soaked up all that smokey goodness over the years and be shot. I am kind of thinking they are going to be crappy smelling even after cleaning them up. Thoughts?

no experience with this, but I do know an ozone generator is great for eliminating odors. If you can find someone locally who will loan you one you could fab a cheap enclosure (carboard box?) and put the knives and the generator in it for a couple days.

You can soak them in diesel oil and won't notice the tobacco smoke anymore

No idea if the smell will remain with the wood, but these seem not too difficult to rehandle, just give it a try. Other than that, sanding and oiling is a good suggestion. I picked up a butcher knife on ebay recently and wanted to play around with it a bit. The scales are similar to what you describe and I hesitate to rip them off. If I do, I may replace them with something very similar, just as a gesture to the history of the knives. It somehow feels wrong to put fancy exotic woods on them.

Is Forgecraft carbon or stainless??? If stainless, fill a jar with Simple Green and let them soak overnight. Give them a good scrub with a scrub pad and they should be good as new. If carbon, soak in mineral spirits, scrub, repeat if necessary. Oil the handle and you should be good to go.